


The Boy in the Bordello

by YumeNouveau



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Aristocrat Remus, Brothel Worker Sirius, Brothels, M/M, No Sex, Peer Remus, Prostitute Sirius, Regency, Regency Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 18:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16770220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YumeNouveau/pseuds/YumeNouveau
Summary: Regency Era - London- Sirius has spent the last five years starting a new life for himself as a brothel worker until late one night a stranger enters his room wanting only to talk.





	The Boy in the Bordello

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution for the latest Remus/Sirius 24 hr challenge. The ideas/words to use were: vintage paperbacks, pool parties, lily evans, sharing jackets, buying socks, grocery shopping, sirius' obsession with remus' cute little dimples, and black nail polish. See if you can spot how I used (most of) them! 
> 
> Obviously there's mistakes in speech owing to the fact that I'm neither British nor from this era but I read a lot of Regency Era M/M romance so I hope it helped a tiny bit.
> 
> Enjoy this random AU!

Sirius chuckled as a polite knock sounded at his door. No one knocks in a brothel, he mused. Unless perhaps it was your first time. 

True to prediction, after a long moment the door opened enough to allow entrance of an unfamiliar mess of sandy blond curls framing a handsome face with dimples the ancient greeks would start a war over. Sirius rested his head in his hand and gave an appraising smile. At least this one would be no hardship. Easy on the eyes, and hopefully other parts as well. 

Perched on the edge of his somewhat garish bed, red comforters and hangings with golden tassels and trim, Sirius regarded the stranger for a moment before beckoning him inside. The man took a wary step in and shut the door securely behind himself, as if every secret could be kept from entering. Or escaping. 

Clad in an immaculately tailored jacket, vest, and trousers that hugged his long legs to perfection, the newcomer was every inch a man of the ton. Sirius had to hold himself back considerably from darting his eyes between them in comparison. He may not be wealthy but his earnings afforded him fine enough clothing, soft buckskin trousers and clean linen shirtsleeves that were currently still attached to him merely by the cuffs yet pooled behind his back on the bed. It was all part of the game, showing off some accents while hiding others. He knew the man was staring at his lean white chest and smiled a wicked grin in return. 

“How may I be of service?” he asked, biting his bottom lip as he rose from the bed, leaving the shirt behind. The man seemed to startle, as if all this suddenly became reality and Sirius a statue brought to life. He stilled as Sirius approached and only at the last moment held out his hand as if to greet another man of his class.

“Lupin, Remus Lupin. It is indeed a pleasure. And you are?”

Sirius laughed at the strange equality the other afforded him before shaking the gloved hand. The man’s palm felt warm and he wondered if he was sweating beneath. Sirius loved to make beautiful men sweat.

“You can call me Sirius,” he said lightly before edging closer. The man stiffened as Sirius put a hand to his shoulder. He stared it like it was both the most wonderful and most shocking thing he’d ever seen. Taking a step, Lupin backed up until he was flush to the door.

“Actually I would prefer us to keep this...companionable. Er, less familiar. I am not after your company as it were, in that sense.”

“Is that so?” Sirius said, raising an eyebrow before turning on his heal to lounge lazily on the edge of the bed. He’d never been turned down before, especially in his own room, but there was always a first. “Well then, Lupin, what brings you to this fine establishment? It’s not exactly as if Madam Evans advertises my presence here. In fact I’m considered her most well kept secret. So do tell, why you are here and both seemingly interested and yet not interested in my particular talents.”

Sirius watched as Lupin swallowed and reddened perceptible. The man was obviously keenly attracted to men, attracted to him if the tight stretch of cloth in the front of his trousers was any indication. Yet not here to seduce. Interesting. Sirius smiled. He loved a good mystery.

“Well,” Lupin said, grabbing a chair from a corner and easily lifting it one handed to seat himself properly in front of Sirius. “You see, I have a problem. And I had nowhere to turn. Well no one to turn to for advice.”

“So you picked me, your oldest and dearest companion,” Sirius laughed.

“What a sharp tongue you have,” Lupin remarked before a small smile graced his lips, making his dimples all the more pronounced. “But obviously no. I cannot go to my peers, nor so my rather conservative family. And due to your profession being both one of secrets and also central to this issue…”

“And that issue being?” Sirius asked.

“I find myself increasingly attracted to men.”

“Shocking,” Sirius interrupted.

“Well not to you but it would be to my peers,” the man admitted, “So I find myself in need of someone to confide in. I would pay for your time, appropriately, as if I were a customer. And maybe you can help me come to terms with something I cannot seem to accept but obviously you have embraced...sorry I find myself babbling.”

The man was adorable, that was for certain. He wrung at the gloved hands folded in his lap, looking down at his overly shinned shoes in such embarrassment that Sirius felt the urge to run over and hug the man, a gesture he was not often wont to. 

“So let me see if I understand correctly,” Sirius said, laying back and stretching his shoulders. “You wish for my time, to talk of your shirt-lifting inclinations, and would like me to, what? Listen? Offer my sage wisdom on the values of being a sodomite?”

“Well I am sure if you are disinclined there are other establishments I might visit…”

“No no,” Sirius stood and grasped the man’s forearm. He could not let the handsome and incredibly intriguing man leave, that much was certain. “I’m game.”

Lupin smiled and sank back into his chair. 

“So,” Sirius said, one long hand waved languidly in the air. “Tell me about yourself.”

“Well I…” Lupin stopped suddenly, rose and gracefully removed his jacket. After all the man’s protests at seduction, Sirius was so shocked he found himself blushing as Lupin revealed his shirtsleeves. Sirius didn’t move until Lupin took the fabric and layed it over his own bare shoulders. 

“There now. Sorry, you looked...a bit cold,” the man blushed and coughed before continuing. Sirius placed his arms in the coat sleeves, breathing in the smell of old books, a spiced cologne and the scent of the other man lightly intermingled in the warm fabric. “So it all began at Eaton.”

“Oh of course,” Sirius laughed. “Where better to learn to love men but a school full of them?”

“Quite,” Lupin conceded, smiling softly. “Well it was years ago, this first...urge you could say. Funny, I never even knew his name, barely remember his face. Just short dark hair, aristocratic features and a haughty smile from across the room. The boy was conversing with someone else near a fountain at the beginning of term banquet. I never even approached him. Yet I will always remember being so incredibly drawn to him, like a moth to a flame.”

“And so, you proceeded to live a life of sin, taking for yourself a string of lover, yet none could make you forget that first young love,” Sirius teased and the other man rolled his eyes.

“Does that smart mouth not get you into trouble?”

“All the time,” Sirius grinned, “but do go on.” He wasn’t about to tell the other man that he had, in fact, also attended Eaton, probably around the same time. And his now long raven hair was then short and properly styled as his family insisted. Intriguing. 

“Well that was...what five years back. And instead of acting on my urges, I have been rather resilient at repressing them. Yes I have attempted to court women to be sure, and while I find them lovely to behold or am intrigued by their sharp wit and intellect, I can find nothing deeper.” 

“It should always go deeper,” Sirius snickered.

“I am rethinking our arrangement as we speak,” Lupin sighed and Sirius rose to put a hand to his knee. 

“Please, I promise to be good,” Sirius said, batting his lashes.

“Somehow I doubt that. And I am not sure I should like that either,” Lupin confessed before blushing again and clearing his throat. He then glanced to Sirius’ bedside, eyes widening as he took in the stack of books, their worn canvas covers a jeweled rainbow cascading upwards. 

“Oh you read?” Lupin started, and Sirius was about to give a biting retort but the other man seemed so genuinely happy as he stepped forward to shuffle through the pile. 

“Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, even William Blake. I found his Chimney Sweeper Poems in particular to be quite illuminating to the lives of impoverished children,” he said, long fingers reverently sweeping over the covers. 

“You, a man of the ton, is interested in the plight of the poor?” Sirius asked incredulously. Everything about the man screamed wealth and class, the fact that he had read these progressive thinkers, much less was singing their praises, left him skeptical.

“Oh. I do play the part well I must say,” Lupin shrugged and swept a hand through his shaggy curls, “But in reality I am the fourth son of a once wealthy and now barely middle class family. I work, a secretary both for my family and others of my peers. This is my one good suit and really I have spent almost my last few shillings coming here.” He said it like it was nothing but to Sirius it was everything.

Sirius looked down at his nails, once pristine, and cleaned a slight speck of black soot from his cuticle. “It might surprise you,” he said, no longer hiding his posh accent, “but I too came from...privilege. I left that life behind long ago, family squabbles you know. Something about them wishing all the poor would die under their polished boots and would I not just go and marry my cousin Bella? So yes, I think I understand you better than you think Lupin.”

“You intrigue me,” Lupin said, coming to sit on the bed beside Sirius. “And you left that all behind without a second thought? Not all would be so brave.”

“All would if they knew my cousin,” Sirius said, laughing to cover the pain. “I left one night, not even able to pack my own bag. Did not even remember a pair of socks, I was so used to being cared for. It was Christmas holidays, damn cold out as I wandered the streets. Finally I came across a house I only then remembered from my childhood. It was a sorry thing, roof a mess of straw and planks, smaller than most drawing rooms I had been in. Yet I remembered sneaking off as a child to play there with a small boy named James. So I knocked, and there he was. Answered his own door and took me into his arms like it had been minutes and not years since we had been childhood companions. Well I tried work, farms, factories, but none of it was for me. I need a bit of luxury still it seems. So here I am, the secret sinner of a brothel owned and operated by my best friend’s wife. And why have I just poured my heart out to you when it was supposed to be the other way around?” Sirius was stricken. He couldn’t believe all he had shared with this stranger and sat back in shock. 

Lupin though, simply looked at him fondly and removed his gloves, placing one hand directly over Sirius’ own shaking one. The warmth calmed him and he realized that the other man was no longer nervous. Instead a very right sense of satisfaction seemed to sweep his features into an expression very unlike the nervous man who had previously walked in.

“I did not know,” Lupin said, amber eyes staring straight into his own. “And I fear I owe you a bit of an apology. You see, I do know you. In fact I have been searching for you for five years.”

“Oh,” Sirius swallowed and felt his chest constrict. So the man did know it had been him at Eaton all those years ago. A moment in time so imprinted on Lupin that he’d never been able to shake it.

“I used to see you, laughing in the dining hall, running in the corridors or wandering down by the lake. You were so beautiful. So unattainable. And then one day you were gone. I never knew how empty I could feel before that.” Remus rubbed his thumb over Sirius’ fingers affectionately as he sat frozen in place, unable to process the other man’s words. Lupin had been searching, for him? All this time? 

“And then I saw you again, last month, leaving this establishment. It took me neigh on two weeks to convince Madam Evans I was not part of the watch or some shady character looking to blackmail her.”

“Two weeks? Then, why didn’t you visit me sooner?” Sirius asked, his mouth dry yet finding the words despite his shock. He needed to know everything.

“I...I was afraid. Afraid you would pretend not to be that boy from Eaton. Or even turn me down. Which I know very well that you still could…”

Sirius silenced him with lips he did not even remember pressing to the other man’s own. Lupin’s mouth was sweet and warm and so right that his entire body burned from the small contact. The man gasped against him and Sirius tasted the surprise before shaking fingers wound into the long hair gathered at the nape of his neck and held him close. Never in all his time had a kiss felt like that. Like Sirius was known and accepted, desired and loved all at once. 

It was Lupin who broke it off, pressing his forehead to Sirius’ own and smiling softly.

“Run away with me,” he asked, his words quiet and beautiful.

“Where shall we go?” Sirius asked, knowing in reality how little the answer really mattered.

“Anywhere love, anywhere.”


End file.
